The Privilege of Age
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: SSHPDM, LMNM as background. It's taken Lucius more than five years, but he supposes he can accept that Severus and Potter are the best ones for his son. Maybe. COMPLETE.


**Title:** The Privilege of Age

 **Disclaimer:** J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

 **Pairings:** Snape/Harry/Draco, Lucius/Narcissa

 **Content Notes:** Threesome, slight angst, AU (in that Snape lives)

 **Rating:** PG

 **Wordcount:** 2100

 **Summary:** It's taken Lucius more than five years, but he supposes he can accept that Severus and Potter are the best ones for his son. Maybe.

 **Author's Notes:** Another of my July Celebration fics, for goddess47's request: _How about a future fic with Harry, Severus and Draco... it's their third or fourth wedding anniversary and someone (canon child? Lucius? Narcissa?) is finally accepting that they really are in love and mean to stay together..._ I chose Lucius. Happy July!

 **The Privilege of Age**

"Lucius? If you don't come downstairs soon, we'll be late!"

Lucius closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against his mirror. He could almost hear what Draco would say if he saw his father standing so close to a looking glass. Hell, if he waited a few more minutes, he would _get_ to hear what Narcissa would say.

But he still had to muster his courage to go to a party celebrating the three-way bonding that his son had engaged in, the bonding Lucius had treated as a joke and a prank and a threat that would never be fulfilled until the day he saw his son standing between Severus Snape and Harry Potter.

The one man literally old enough to be his father, a former Death Eater who would add nothing to Draco's prestige or connections, and now disfigured by the hideous scars from surviving Nagini's bite. And the other their enemy, the son of a Mudblood, the one who had given _Draco_ scars in a duel never adequately explained to Lucius.

"Darling."

Lucius winced and stood upright. Matters had reached a pretty pass when Narcissa used that particular pet name. He turned around and saw her standing in the doorway of his bedroom, arrayed in shining dark blue robes that had small twinkling silver stars here and there among the folds.

"We must be on our way."

Lucius sighed again. He had his own dress robes on already, pale silver-grey ones that complemented the color his hair was slowly turning. It was still with reluctance that he reached out to take Narcissa's arm and escort her down the stairs.

"What's the real reason you don't want to go?" Narcissa asked quietly, not looking at him. Lucius opened his mouth to answer, and she tapped him on the arm with the small cerulean fan she carried. "The real one. Not the one you think is owed to blood and pride and heritage."

Lucius wanted to bristle, because his regard for all those things was _real_ enough. But Narcissa kept walking, and kept waiting, and Lucius finally cast his gaze down at the marble stairs and mumbled, "Because I don't see how they can make Draco happy."

Narcissa looked at him, and Lucius flinched a little. She'd had her own doubts. Why look at him as if she had entered a world made of ice?

"Perhaps you should think about what makes our son happy, and not what would make _you_ happy, Lucius."

And while Lucius was still trying to splutter that his objections made sense, and there was nothing wrong about wanting their son to marry someone his own age and people who hadn't done things to _damage_ him, Narcissa picked up the hems of her robe and swept down the spiral in front of him.

After a dispirited moment, Lucius followed. Narcissa met him at the bottom of the stairs and gave him another look, a kinder one this time.

"Pay attention to the expression on Draco's face," she said quietly. "That's all I ask. It's how I settled my fears."

After a moment, Lucius nodded unwillingly. He'd made the promise, he thought, as they went out the front door. Which meant he had to keep it.

Narcissa would notice if he didn't. And nothing went well for him when Narcissa had cause to notice something.

* * *

"Look at their faces."

Narcissa told Lucius that as she went past to speak to Pansy Parkinson, who had somehow been invited despite Lucius knowing how desperately she had wanted to date Draco in the past. Lucius had to shake his head. Did Draco simply _change_ all his normal feelings when he became bonded to these two most unsuitable suitors?

Or did something else happen?

So Lucius sat up and circulated around the party and talked with the other guests he _could_ talk with—he had somewhat of an armed truce with the Weasleys that only permitted mutual ignoring, not civil conversation—and watched his son.

Draco sat at the central table, the only round one in a series of long ones with benches, set in the garden outside his home. _Their_ home, Lucius had to admit. He looked up with a bright smile no matter who approached him, whether former Slytherin friend, Weasley, or people from the Ministry. Given Draco and Severus's business developing potions and spells for those who had money but no creative instinct, and Potter's business writing Defense textbooks, their circles included a lot of wizards Lucius didn't know.

But smiles could be deceiving. Lucius had taught Draco, from a young age, how to smile around people who might wish him well with their mouths and have murder in their eyes. Reluctantly, Lucius turned to observe Severus.

Severus was leaning against a decorative pillar not far from that central table, watching Draco with amusement. He hadn't bothered to put anything over the scars—he usually didn't—but Lucius had to admit he looked _dignified_ , at least. His hair had turned a complicated grey color, the shade of ancient iron, and he wore black robes, as always, but these robes were less severe than the ones he'd had to wear as a professor at Hogwarts.

Severus watched Potter, too, and spoke to his share of guests coming up to congratulate him. But his head was always turning back to Draco as if he was a sunflower and Draco the sun. Lucius wondered if Narcissa expected him to be gratified by that.

Narcissa, from the way she caught Lucius's eye across the honeysuckle, clearly thought Severus adored Draco. But Lucius knew other ways of watching someone, too. With the pride of possession, or the pride of influence.

 _I would not have Severus watching my son the way I once watched Cornelius Fudge,_ Lucius decided fretfully, and faced Potter.

He was the most active one of the triad at the moment, darting around the garden like a hummingbird fed purest sugar, laughing with one friend, commiserating with another, launching invitations to pubs and press conferences and the opening of some building that was to be dedicated to war orphans. With how busy Potter had been, Lucius was only surprised there were any war orphans _left_.

And Potter glanced at Severus and Draco both in the same way, neither one more often than the other. His smile was private and pleased and Lucius could only really interpret it in _one_ way, one he would rather not think about. He had never bothered Draco with the details of his and Narcissa's marriage.

And Draco returned the favor.

 _If I was to watch their faces and nothing else,_ Lucius thought, accepting a glass of tolerable champagne from one of the human waiters hired for the party, _I would think that Severus likes Draco more than Potter, and Potter thinks of nothing but sex all the time, and Draco is so besotted as to be foolish. But if all those were true, I don't think Narcissa would say what she does about them balancing each other well, even if she thought Draco happy enough to leave him where he is._

Lucius moved to one of the decorative pillars on the opposite side of the garden, across from Severus—and soon across from the Weasleys, who gave him hostile glances and left as soon as possible—and where he could observe all three of them equally well. His only guess left was that Narcissa had seen a pattern the three of them made together that, alone, they did not.

And then he saw it.

He didn't want to see it. Lucius fought against seeing it the way he against seeing how dragonpox had covered his father's face right before Abraxas's death. But it was there, subtle and gleaming.

Severus had his wand in his hand only when someone approached Potter rather than the other way around. He touched it when someone came up to Draco, too. It looked like a reflex, one he stopped as soon as he noticed himself doing it, but he was coiled to defend both of them if necessary. He could no more stop doing it than a leopard could stop having claws.

Potter had smiles for everyone, but his vast share of smiles was reserved for Draco and Severus. And it was _both_ of them. Lucius didn't bother counting the number, since he would have had to do nothing but that, but he had the indefinable sense that what Draco might possess in the sheer number of Potter's smiles, Severus got made up for in the warmth of the ones sent his way.

And Draco…

Lucius lowered his head and sighed. Admittedly, he did that partially because he knew Narcissa had stopped beside him, and if he gave her the last word, sometimes she wasn't as bitter about her triumph.

"Well?" she murmured in his ear.

"Draco knows where they both are at all times," Lucius murmured back.

And it was true, although it might not seem so to look at. Draco could be laughing with one of his old friends about some prank they had once pulled in the Slytherin common room, but his point of eye contact would be beyond them, on Potter. And he had never sat with his back so comfortably to any person, to Lucius's knowledge, as he did with regard to Severus.

They were there, all the shifting undercurrents, the ones that Lucius had missed or not seen or perhaps, he had to admit, sometimes deliberately ignored. He rubbed his forehead and cast an anguished glance at Narcissa.

She seemed to understand, and patted his arm. "I don't intend for you to go up and blurt it out in front of everyone," she said. "I only wanted to make sure you saw it." And with a final tilt of her head and significant glance, she went to talk to Hermione Weasley, of all people. Lucius supposed that his wife perhaps didn't feel absolutely bound to Malfoy standards since she was a Black by birth.

Lucius grimaced. He knew what the emphasis in her words meant. No, he didn't need to blurt it out in front of everyone.

But he had to talk to their son.

Lucius let the natural currents of the party carry him away from his pillar and towards Draco's table, and saw the way Draco both smiled and cooled his smile a little as Lucius walked up to him, the way Severus tensed, the way Potter had turned and was trotting back between tables as naturally as blinking.

 _Do they all think I'm going to make myself that unpleasant?_

Maybe they did, and maybe they had reason. Lucius hid his wince and nodded to Draco. "Congratulations, Draco," he said.

He had taught his son well, and Draco _did_ feel bound to Malfoy standards. His eyes widened. He heard the difference in that "Congratulations" from all the other ones that Lucius had given him at the wedding and at other parties, other years.

"Why?" Draco whispered.

Lucius knew Severus and Potter had stopped moving. He gritted his teeth and managed to respond, "Because I can see that you're—happy isn't the word. This is the place where you want to be, and you're joyful being here."

Draco smiled, Severus relaxed, Potter turned to chat with a Weasley. Draco reached out and squeezed his hand. "Thank you, Father," he whispered.

Lucius nodded once and turned away. He found Severus studying him and Potter pressing a drink into his hand, and he smiled at both of them as well, though as opposed his smile to Draco, it might look more than a grimace.

Neither seemed to mind. Potter smiled back and wandered off, and Severus went back to watching.

Lucius went off for a long drink of something stronger than champagne, and the knowledge that he could change, after all, and accept that his son had found his partners in the strangest people.

To make himself feel better, he _also_ went off to snub Arthur Weasley in a completely socially acceptable manner. His son was grown and gone, happy beyond reason, but Lucius had to believe that some shadow of such happiness could be his.

Then he caught Narcissa's eye, and had to smile back at the soft glow that infused her face.

 _Very well, not always a shadow._

 **The End.**


End file.
